Police Officer Who Thought He Could Get Away With Raping 13 Women Sentenced to 263 Years in Prison

Justice has been served.

Daniel Holtzclaw, the Oklahoma City Police Department officer who was found guilty last month on multiple counts of rape, was sentenced today to 263 years in prison. We hope this lengthy sentence brings some measure of closure and justice to his many victims.

ORIGINAL STORY: December 11, 2015

Yesterday, Oklahoma City Police Department officer Daniel Holtzclaw was found guilty of multiple counts of rape. While we won’t know exactly how long his sentence will be, the jury that found him guilty on 18 out of the 36 charges he faced recommends 263 years behind bars. I’ll admit that I was shocked to see this man, — a half-white, half-Japanese police officer — actually held accountable for his acts of violence against black women.

This case was a tough one for me convince myself to closely watch; the issues central to this case hit a little too close to home. You see, I am a black woman who is a survivor of rape and sexual assault. Years ago, when I reported my assaults to my college at the time, they did not take it seriously. Since the decision to take action fell into the hands of a predominantly white administration, I always suspected that my race was a contributing factor to deciding that my allegations were not that serious and thus did not require any sort of action.

Sadly, my suspicions are not unfounded. The connection between sexual violence, black women, and white men has a fraught past. Historically, both free and enslaved black women had much fewer legal and social repercussions available to them if they were raped. A contributing factor was the myth of the hyper-sexual black woman — essentially that we are so promiscuous that we want sex all the time and thus cannot be possibly be raped. This is of course untrue; anyone can be raped regardless of their sexual history. Unfortunately, this harmful stereotype stayed strong and we see the impact of it today. Black women are raped more often and are believed less when they come forward: studies have shown that jurors are more likely to believe a white complainant in a rape case.

So once I heard that the Holtzclaw case had an all-white jury, I couldn’t muster the will to actively seek updates of the case as it progressed. I was concerned that my worst fears would come true. A so-called justice system would fail to bring it for women of color against a man who was on duty. I knew that I wouldn’t have the emotional strength to watch it unfold before my eyes. As an anti-rape activist, I knew the odds: an estimated 2% of rapists ever see a day in jail. And I knew it gets more complicated when we consider that it was an officer who committed these crimes against black women.

And Holtzclaw knew this. Sexual assault is not about sex; it is an act of power. He knew the power and privilege he had as a police officer and intentionally targeted black women to be his victims, especially those with histories of criminal activity. This was done to help him on a few levels: it gave him even more leverage to coerce his victims, the women would be even less likely to report, and, in the small chance that he got caught, his victims would be less likely to be believed. And a look at the testimonies of his victims shows how feeling that they would not be believed was such a powerful silencing tool.

Making the call to report sexual assault is no easy decision and I still remember the thought process I went through when I was raped as a student. While walking to my dorm the morning after an assault, I used the time traveling across the quiet campus to try and process what happened. I knew that I was technically rape due to the letter of the law, but would that matter if I came forward? I thought about my standing in my community: I had few friends and my grades were less than stellar. Would anyone believe me? I knew that it was near impossible that my report would lead to any meaningful legal action. Was it worth interacting with police officers, who don’t just have a history of not believing survivors, but also of committing violence against people like me? After weighing the additional emotional toll of going through what felt like would be a fool’s errand at the time, I decided to remain silent.

Unfortunately, the silence is not limited to survivors. It also surrounds the systemic problem of police violence against black women. Black men have become the public face of police violence while the violence black women endure — often sexual in nature — remains largely invisible. While many may not think this discrepancy matters, the silence around the violence black women face is deafening. Trust me; when a person is raped they notice how their community responds (or doesn’t) and uses that to weigh whether they’ll report or not.

I hope that this case will become a turning point in how we think about rapists and their victims. The fact of the matter is that one’s profession doesn’t exclude them from the possibility of being a sexual predator. An investigation by the Associated Press discovered almost 1,000 officers lost their jobs due to sexual misconduct — and that’s just the ones that the departments caught. The reality is likely much worse.

A look at Holtzclaw’s behavior is a great window into the how rapists operate. Many rapists are serial offenders. And it’s important to note that rapists strategically use rape myths to their advantage. They do not want to be caught, so they will intentionally assault under circumstances where they know people are inclined to blame or not believe the victim. This reality shows, contrary to popular belief, that an assailant isn’t someone who accidentally did not get consent and violated the bodily autonomy of another person.

This is why rape myths are so dangerous. By creating and using them, our society has made pockets of our population more vulnerable to sexual violence and essentially gives rapists a free pass to do their damage. Once we realize that the one’s history does not preclude from them being raped — or raping — I believe that we will make much-needed strides towards creating a safer society.

I know all too well the rape myths that circulate in our society; they are truly damaging. I hope that this conviction is a sign of slow, but steady progress towards caring about victims of all races. Because the sad part is that it’s no surprise to me that Holtzclaw specifically targeted black women. What surprised me is that the media, and then our justice system, acknowledged it.